


By the campfire

by whywouldyou14



Category: Breaking Bad
Genre: Drunkenness, Fluff, Humor, M/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-03
Updated: 2014-07-03
Packaged: 2018-02-07 08:40:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1892472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whywouldyou14/pseuds/whywouldyou14
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One shot. Kind of AU episode in the early season 2, back in the golden days of Walt and Jesse cooking in the RV and Jesse’s friends working at the distribution. Walt decides to make a pause and have a good old campfire.</p>
            </blockquote>





	By the campfire

**Author's Note:**

> I had the idea for this fanfic for a while and promised to write it a week ago. Finally got my hands to it. Would really love your comments!

At some point, Walt realizes that cooking for three days straight, from Friday evening to Sunday, isn’t very effective. First of all, Jesse isn’t that confident in all the cooking steps yet and, to tell the truth, is quite a slow learner. Secondly, Walt doesn’t like to come home completely exhausted. “What are those Indian healers doing with you, anyway? You sleep the whole day after their magic”, – Skyler already asked him once. He hardly convinced her that the shaman used this new ritual that helped him enter Walt’s body as a spirit and try to kill the disease. Thirdly, and finally, Walt still can’t sleep very well inside the RV where two people had died because of him.

So he buys a tent, two sleeping bags, waterproof matches, a bag of coal and a big bottle of 12-year-old single-malt whiskey. Remembering Jesse’s terrible eating habits, he also stops by a grocery store and buys some sausages, two bottles of catchup and mustard, and, after some consideration, a generous pack of marshmallows.

At the meeting place, his partner eyes him suspiciously.

\- Yo, Mister White, what is all this stuff about?

\- I decided that we take a small break during our cook and rest a little by some good old campfire.

Jesse seems puzzled by Walter’s sudden generosity. After some hesitating, he asks:

\- What about the methylamine? Isn’t it, like, gonna spoil or something?

\- No, actually not. – Walt smiles. -  Frankly speaking, last time I told you that bullshit so that we kept cooking.

\- Ha-ha, very funny. – Jesse says, clearly offended. But the idea of camping seems too nice to resist, so he swallows his pride and decides not to be angry with Walt for now.

They pass the whole Friday evening cooking meth; when the sun starts to go down, Walt stops the process at a safe stage and goes outside to put up a tent. Jesse, like always, isn’t much of a help, so Walt just dismisses the kid and asks him to dig a hole in the ground with a shovel and surround it with small rocks to build the campfire. The older man is soon distracted from his task by Jesse’s stupid giggles.

\- Yo, check this out mister White, dude, I am the Worm-man! – he shouts excitedly. Walt lifts his head and sees Jesse packed up in a sleeping bag, just his head sticking out, jumping happily.

The ex-teacher rolls his eyes and sighs. Obviously, in a few moments Jesse’s foot hits a rock and he falls down. Since he's tangled in a sleeping bag, he can’t get out of it himself. Walt practically enjoys his annoyed grunts and, finally, after five or more minutes of the boy’s futile struggle, helps him. “Do you at least know how to start a campfire?” – Mister White asks in frustration. He doesn’t.

Finally, well after the sunset, Walt finishes all the preparations and sinks into the plastic chair. They put some sausages on the sticks. Jesse makes a typical beginner’s mistake and puts his stick too much into the fire, so in five minutes his sausage is all burned on the surface and raw inside. He still seems enjoying it.

\- You know, when I was a kid I thought sausages were living creatures.

Walt snickers.

\- How could you possibly come to that conclusion, Jesse?

\- Well, when you put them into the microwave they make all these weird sounds, I dunno, probably the skin exploding or something. So I thought they were screaming for my help. Couldn’t eat them until I was, like, seven.

Walt looks at the fire and smiles. He puts his perfectly cooked sausage on a plastic plate, cuts it into two pieces and passes it to the boy.

\- You weren’t very bright those days, weren’t you?

\- Yeah, what kind of crazy idea is that, huh? – Jesse chuckles.

They spend some time in silence. The kid gets a pack of marshmallows. He can’t possibly screw up with the cooking of marshmallows, Walt thinks, but he is wrong: soon one of them catches on fire, and the 25-year old guy is screaming, drops the stick on the ground and starts to stomp it.

\- Tell me one thing, boy: have you ever went out on a hike?

Jesse looks at Walt a little embarrassed.

\- No, never. I mean… - he pauses like he tries to remember something, - I was supposed to go with my Dad on this fishing trip when I was, like, twelve, but then for some reason I thought it wasn’t so cool, so I ran off to Badger’s garage and smoked weed the whole weekend instead. Dad never invited me again. Like you said, I am not very bright. – he sighs bitterly.

Walt feels a tinge of pity for his partner.

\- To tell you the truth, I haven’t been out on a hike for a long time, - Walt confesses. – I mean I really wanted to go with Junior, but Skyler was so worried that something might happen to him during the trip that she never let me. He went this year with Hank, though. – Walt states sadly.

The fire crackles, it is really warm and cozy. Same as 40 years ago, Walt has this nice feeling in his gut when the world has become as small as a circle of unstable light, and after that there is nothing, just you, your chair and the fire. He feels sad that Junior is not around. “Want a drink?” – he asks his partner.

As always, the kid is full of surprises. Jesse probably tried the drugs that Walt never heard of, but he doesn’t know how to drink his whiskey properly. It is too bitter for him, and soon he wants to mix it with something sweet. Walt is clearly offended: “Jesse, you just ruined a perfect 12-year-old Glenfiddich with soda. It’s like eating a hot dog from a golden plate!” “I love hot dogs”, - Jesse says apologetically as he continues to drink the sweet mix.

Soon enough though, Walt doesn’t really care, because he finds out that Jesse has various stages of being drunk. Out of pure scientific interest, he wants to observe them all: Walt always loved a good experiment.

Jesse’s first stage is a loose tongue. He tells Walt how the business is going, and how he always has to keep all his guys in line, and how that stupid Badger always tries to steal some meth all for himself, and how he had a band at school and he filmed a videoclip, and how he has this neighbor at the house who is totally hot and, surprisingly, is just a little slightly older than him. Walt says some distracted “yes”, and “interesting” and keeps listening. The glitter in the kid’s blue eyes is brighter, his breathing gets a little faster. Walt checks the bottle; there is nearly two thirds to finish. The whiskey made himself more at ease and relaxed, but he is too experienced to become tipsy that fast.

Jesse’s second stage is admiration and love for the world. The boy smiles widely and tells Walt what a great idea it was to go hiking, how he enjoys it, and how cool that Mister White “isn’t such a dick today”, and that he wants Walt to know that deep down Jesse knows what a great guy he is. “You know what, old man?” – he says loudly and suddenly stands up. “I think I should give you a hug. Yeah, I definitely will!” Sooner than Walt is able to take measures, Jesse approaches him clumsily and tries to hug him with the chair in his way. Walt almost falls behind but soon stands up and conducts his partner back to his chair.

It is well past midnight, and Walt feels a little dizzy. He knows that they both should stop drinking, but still is too curious about the boy’s behavior.

Jesse’s third stage is frustration. Mister White really lost the moment when his partner started crying. “I am no good. Everybody hates me!” – he sobbed, putting his plastic glass on the sand. “Cause I’m a useless piece of shit, and I only cause trouble to you and everyone else, Mister White! Every time I screw up and put us both in danger! Like, fuck, I couldn’t even fry a marshmallow!”

Now it’s Walt’s time to hug Jesse and tell him that he shouldn’t hate himself, that he’s a good partner, and loyal, and a sweet kid, and how could anyone possibly hate him?

Unluckily, Walt doesn’t remember Jesse’s fourth stage of drunkenness very well; he is too inebriated himself to be a keen observer at that moment. In the morning though, when he wakes up next to the kid in the tent, fully clothed, yet the fire is doused and his glasses are in the case (always surprised him how, even terribly drunk, he never forgot to take care of the safety aspects), he only remembers some glimpses. The weight of someone on his lap, hands on his back, big blue eyes wet with tears really close to his face, an indistinguishable whisper, something like “You are so kind, Mister White”, a shy smile, three or four clumsy wet kisses and one failed attempt to put a tongue in his mouth, and then the sound of Jesse’s snoring somewhere on the right side of his neck.

Walt looks at the watch: it’s 5 am. He slowly moves away from the boy and carefully covers him with an open sleeping bag.

At 10 am Jesse wakes up with a heavy head and a dry throat. Walt gives him a glass of water, and soon they are ready to cook. They both pretend that nothing happened.

Later, Walt catches himself thinking that he doesn’t know what to call the fourth stage. For their next trip, he buys two bottles of Scoth.

**Author's Note:**

> Jesse's stages of drunkenness are similar to mine, though my last one is usually frustration.


End file.
